The magical beauty of a story yet untold

It is in my beliefs that the magic of a story lies in the mystery of the beyond, lands which the story never tells, personalitites that were never given a chance to flourish, tales that the storyteller only hints upon - with much a twinkle in his eyes - it is all left to your imagination to try grasping at the magnitude and infinity of it all.

And the sheer power of it is attempt as you might you can never grasp the whole story; it is left up to you to percieve how it goes, because of the simple fact that it is not a confirmed event, never more than a probability that something would happen in this way. You can give an educated guess and often it may be correct; but then again it is only correct in your own world. its amorphous nature only lends more wings to your mind's eye and lifts you off the ground. Such is the beauty of any story worth telling.

Such is the beauty of Tolkien's Middle Earth too, and in its far off, mystic mountain ranges that forever shield the reader's eyes from what lies beyond, the reader can only guess at what wonderous treasures lie beyond, groves of beauty that surpass even Lothlorien's Forests, or what deep dark things that lurk beneath the mountains themselves, of spirits both of nature and nurtured, of valiant heroes and vile evil that remain locked forever in arms.

It is the beauty of the unknowing that allows you to gasp in awe at the wonder that can only remain with you if the wonder itself remains out of your grasp. It is only when this wonder is unceremoniously caught and subject to reason, tinkering and as it is finally nailed down onto hard ground it breathes its last cry out, a terrible lament of beauty, which when heard gives such an experience to the reader, a final cry of wonder before it finally dissipates and dies.

Much like how beautiful a jellyfish is, which when finally caught by fishermen and violated by the harsh, sharp edges of terra and the blistering sun, before arriving in its final destination: alocohol drenched containers. Its colour is forever bleached out, its grace and magnificence will never drift the seas as its tendrils are finally set and hardened. In its silent scream it will give its wonder up for good.

***

Which is why i admit that writing this story is hard. As a concept it has been nurtured and left simmering in my mind for the better of two years. Finally, loathing, I reached out and grabbed this fleeting thing from the air and proceeded to pluck its feathers. To make a mount for all to enjoy, see? As I harvest this concept and begin the rituals that would set it in stone its wonder bleeds out of it like so much life. Life which I soak up and breathe into the story I'm about to embark.

I tell of a universe, old and aged, Ancient. I tell of a land that has been left to desiccation and decay, a land that has seen the world pass on. I tell of those who were left behind and now face the desolation that is the land. There is beauty, terrible beauty in this. From the wind-scoured erosions to the mighty sand-dunes that make the apotheosis of all deserts, and the silent devastation of lightplay wrought upon the land as day died and passed to night, as the cold indifferent stars shone their lights, never warming. The massive cities carved out of the ground now lie static and forever, cursed to see the sun cross the sky over and over again, in an endless reply of events. There is a terrible beauty in this stagnance.

It is in this stagnance that the left overs of this land must struggle to survive. They know that it is inevitable that they will perish. They know that in this increasingly dead and inert world the EndTimes are coming, where an event horizon from which nothing escapes will come to consume them all, and leave no trace; finally leaving the world in its final peace and perpetual tranquility of stagnance.

They also know that there is a choice to be made, a choice where whichever path chosen yields a terrible price. Between eternal stagnation and non existence, a choice of forever and nothing, in the face of this oncoming inevitability, the hardest decision must be made: to face the oncoming End Times, or to lie forever peaceful in a sheolic limbo of the stagnant paradise, Elysium.

What ever happens I will not know, I have not made the sacrifice of another fleeting thing in my head yet. The life I have breathed into this story has yielded much magic already, and for now it will be enough.